McHugh's Miscellany: The Green flag that will always welcome the Stars and Stripes

US President Joe Biden is in Ireland this week you will know, unless you have been hiding somewhere deep in the wilds without communications of any kind.

But I initially got the feeling that the excitement of this visit, other than to his ancestral homes of Louth and Mayo, may not have had that same intensity, than others.

That was until, I read that he is said to possibly have Donegal ancestry as well through a Scanlon family connection and Killybegs.

Mr Biden, possibly with the exception of John F Kennedy, has paraded his Irish heritage more proudly than just about any other Irish/American.

Once it was a big thing to have the President of the United States visit this part of the world.

But now it is part of a long tradition, particularly of more recent times with Air Force One arriving on Emerald shores, with visitors that have included the last four American Presidents who preceded Biden - Trump, Obama, Bush Jnr and Clinton.

Most of those visits will never compare to that of John F Kennedy’s visit in 1963 as he was later to lose his life in Dallas that November.

And we had also had the likes of the Ballyporeen visitor and Tipperary linked President Ronald Reagan and even Richard Nixon in 1970, whose lineage had a sprinkling of Antrim, Kildare and Cork.

Maybe we will get a President to Donegal one day.

Apparently there are 23 Presidents of the United States that can claim Irish ancestry.

Some Donegal lineage has already been linked to James Knox Polk, President number 11, who served from 1845 to -1849, but alas he had no flying wings to take him home.

James Buchanan, that country’s 15th President had a father who was born in County Donegal around 1761.

More recently, Harry S.Truman, its 33rd President from 1945 to 1953 was also said to have some Donegal ancestry, but he was also the first to approve the use of a nuclear weapon on another country in WW2.

In reality, we should not be taking this for granted at all from American Presidents.

Air Force One arriving in Dublin this week. (Pic:MerrionStreet.ie) 

But we ought to be grateful as President Biden made a visit to us while giving the Coronation of King Charles III in the UK a miss. I doubt that Donald Trump would have!

And if nothing else, President Biden’s “keep the peace” comment is as pertinent today, as it was 25 years ago, when the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

The US had a big part to play in the lead up to the 1998 accord, it has to be said.

President Joe Biden is currently on an official trip to the island of Ireland (Photo by Adam Schultz)

One man who would be very happy in the heavens this week was the main man in getting Knock airport from a dream to a reality, today’s Ireland West Airport - the late Monsignor James Horan.

In the space of a few short years, both the Pope and the U.S. President will have used their facilities to land and take off.

But they still will never have the most beautiful airport in the world . . . .

Agus ar deireadh

It was good to see the county so very busy over the Easter weekend, despite the valiant efforts of Mr Weatherman to spoil the party towards the latter end of the bank holiday.

But the fragility and precious nature of life was also highlighted, especially when it disappears in such a cruel fashion, as happened near Headford last weekend.

The death of two young 14-year-olds so tragically in a road fatality, brings us all back to reality and the cruelty that life can bestow in a totally indiscriminate way.

It broke my heart, as I am sure, it did, for every parents and family in the country.